Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson used his party’s annual general meeting Sunday to try to calm a simmering revolt in one of the party’s stronghold neighbourhoods, acknowledging he pushed too fast for big density increases in Grandview-Woodland.

In comments to about 350 party faithful, Robertson said his council learned the hard way it can’t rush its ambitious agenda of reshaping neighbourhoods.

But the mayor said Vision members should not allow those mistakes to open an opportunity for their enemies — including the Non-Partisan Association — to undermine his aggressive social activist agenda.

“Sometimes we move too fast. Maybe some of us drop an F-bomb every once in a while,” he said, referring to another mistake he made when he was accidentally recorded mouthing off, asking if disgruntled residents from the West End were “F***ing ... NPA hacks.”

The first mistake forced the Vision-led council to send the proposed Grandview-Woodland area plan — with huge towers proposed for Broadway and Commercial — back to the drawing board until after the election.

“It did not come bubbling up through the community process and we heard full force that this was unacceptable,” Robertson said. “We made a mistake.”

The salty language of the other mistake continues to shadow the mayor, with some West Enders still skeptical he is interested in listening to their concerns.

The meeting also involved the perfunctory endorsement of every incumbent seeking re-election on council, park and school board. All seven Vision council members said they are standing for re-election, so are six school board trustees. But only one park board commissioner, Trevor Loke, is staying on. Three retired and the fifth, former chairwoman Niki Sharma, wants to run for council. Vision decided not to put the incumbents running for re-election through a combined nomination process. Instead, it will hold a separate nomination meeting June 22 for one candidate each for council and school board, and four for park board.

The party said of the 321 people registered to vote in Sunday’s leadership review, 87 per cent cast ballots, and support for individual members ranged from 91 to 99 per cent. Robertson received 99 per cent, which caused one party member to quip that they were now trying to hunt down the one person who voted against him.

On Friday the party announced it would run only partial slates of eight for council, five for park board and seven for school board, allowing some room on the ballot for other people to get elected. (There are 10 council positions, nine school and five parks up for grabs, as well as the mayor’s job.)

Robertson applied a measure of humility in his speech, but he warned the alternative is to turn the city back over to the NPA, which he called “a party of angry old white men.”

They would quickly abandon many of Vision’s progressive policies, he said.

“On these issues that really matter most, whether it is the environment, affordable housing, the economy or building a compassionate and inclusive city, we are on the right track,” he said. “We are not going to step aside and yield to political parties who will undermine the work that has been taking place for these last two terms.”

At least two people, Sharma and former Vancouver Library board chairwoman Catherine Evans, have said they will run for the remaining Vision council seat. Three are running for the last school board position; former Vision trustee Sharon Gregson, teacher Joy Alexander, and architect Ian Ross McDonald.

The real race, however, appears to be for park board, where at least six are seeking the four positions. They include Coree Tull, who worked on Nathan Cullen’s NDP campaign and is NDP MP Fin Donnelly’s assistant; former Vision board member Naveen Girn, Brent Granby, a former West End Residents’ Association president; Mark Mitchell, who worked on Liberal MP Hedy Fry’s campaign; Trish Kelly, the chair of the city’s food policy council, and Sammie Jo Rumbaua, an activist in Vancouver’s southeast Asian and Filipino communities.

In previous elections Vision had power-sharing agreements with the Coalition of Progressive Electors and the Green party of Vancouver. But both parties, dissatisfied with Vision’s direction, have since said they won’t renew that agreement.

Vision executive director Stepan Vdovine said his party believes it is best to run only partial slates, in part to focus voters on specific candidates and not water down votes. He noted that never in the city’s history has a party won every seat it sought.

Also on Sunday the Green Party of Vancouver nominated two new candidates, Cleta Brown and Pete Fry, to join party leader Adriane Carr on the ballot for council. Carr is seeking her second term of office. The party is also calling for a plebiscite to be held on Kinder Morgan's plan to twin its pipeline to carry crud oil.

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